I knocked. I heard a voice say, “Come in.”
A man was sitting behind a desk reading. Without looking up, he motioned for me to sit down. I was too nervous to sit. My knees wouldn’t bend. They hardened. I looked around the office. It was no bigger than a closet, and was a pigsty. Newspapers were stacked up from the floor to the ceiling. A pile of clothes and a brown suitcase sat in one corner. The window was shut and there was no air in the place. The publisher was in his forties. Whatever he was reading made him smile like a senile goat. There was a toothbrush and a white bowl filled with green water on the desk. The toothbrush made me sick. It had a hair in it.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, looking up.
I reached into my bag, felt the gun, and pulled out the manuscript. I plopped it on his desk and went through my routine. The author, I said, who shall remain anonymous for the moment, was seeking the right publisher for his groundbreaking masterpiece, and because of the sensitive nature of the subject matter, I couldn’t possibly leave the manuscript with him, but if he had an ounce of curiosity and didn’t want to miss out on the most sensational opportunity of a lifetime, he’d really need to look through the manuscript now, while I waited. I had made this speech so many times I said it without thinking. He stared at me the whole time, with half-drunk eyes, smiling that old-goat smile as if he were thinking of bubble baths.
“Well, let’s have a look at her then, shall we?”
He turned to the first page. Through the window behind him I could see a train snake into the station. The publisher flicked to the middle of the manuscript, giggled at something, then put it down.
“A satire, eh? I love a good satire. It’s well written and it’s pretty funny, but to be honest, not really in my line.”
My hand, grasping the gun, was all sweat.
“Thanks for coming in anyway.”
I didn’t move. A minute dragged by. He made gestures with his eyes that directed me out the door. I ignored them.
“Look,” he said. “Things are a bit rough for me right now. I couldn’t afford to publish my own obituary if I wanted to, so why don’t you fuck off.”
I didn’t move. It was as though the air in the room had turned solid and trapped me where I was standing.
“You know what I was reading when you came in? No? Nothing- that’s what! I was pretending to read so I’d look busy. Sad, huh?” When I still didn’t so much as visibly breathe, he said, “Take a look at this.”
A pile of books towered beside his desk, and he picked the top one and handed it to me. I took a look. It was a biology textbook.
“Back in London I was working for the tabloids. That was a long time ago.” He came around and sat on the edge of his desk, his eyes darting around the room. “This is a small publishing company. Nothing too flash. We publish science textbooks. Physics, biology, chemistry, the usual suspects. Me and my wife, we shared this business fifty-fifty. Her money, inherited from her father, and my money, saved through blood and sweat. So ten years we ran our little company, and sure, we had our domestic disputes, and I had my indiscretions, but I was discreet about them, so what was the harm? Look at this. Feast your eyes on the instrument of my destruction!” He motioned to the biology textbook in my hands and said, “Page ninety-five.”
I turned to page 95. It was a picture of the human body, with all the parts labeled and their functions explained. It looked like a booklet of stereo instructions. “See anything unusual?” he asked.
I couldn’t. It looked like a pretty standard human body. Sure, it was lacking some common elements like love handles, wrinkles, and stretch marks, but otherwise it was relatively comprehensive.
“She did it on purpose. She knew I’d be too pissed to check through it before printing.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“The brain! Look at what she’s called the brain!”
I looked. It said “The Testicle.” And where the testicles were, it was labeled not just “The Brain” but “ Stanley ’s Brain.” In fact, now that he’d pointed it out, almost every organ in the human male was a critique of Stanley’s drinking, gambling, and womanizing: the heart, the kidneys, the lungs, the intestines, you name it, she had accompanying notes that described his excessive alcohol consumption, his bad diet, his aggressiveness and poor sexual performance. It went on and on. I could see how this wouldn’t be appropriate for certain schoolchildren.
“She sabotaged me. All on account of me sleeping with a barmaid at our local. OK, I shouldn’t have done it, but to ruin my livelihood! Ten thousand books I can’t sell! And I can’t sue anyone because I signed the approval form. I delivered the book to the printers myself. Of course she lost everything too, but she doesn’t care. That’s how vindictive women are. It was worth it, she says, just to put me in the ground. Have you ever heard such venom? You’re not likely to. Now I’m waiting for the creditors to come knocking. I can’t even pay the rent on this office. So as much as I’d like to publish your delightful little satire…”
“It’s not a satire.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
He looked down at the manuscript and thumbed through it quickly.
“This is on the level?”
I nodded.
“Then this would be a textbook for young criminals?”
I nodded again.
“You could get both of us arrested for publishing this.”
“I’m willing to risk it if you are.”
He leaned back into his chair and said, “How about that.” He looked at the manuscript again, and a little while later he said, “Well, well.”
He closed his eyes a moment before opening them again. The moment seemed endless, but it was probably only half that.
“What made you come to me?” he asked.
“Everyone else said no.”
“Of course they did,” he said, chuckling. That seemed to please him no end.
His mouth widened into a smile, and he jumped up as though answering a call to duty, that smile just kept on widening and widening, until my mouth hurt.
I ran all the way to Harry’s and stumbled up the front steps. I was so excited I almost forgot the secret knock. It was too elaborate. Four knocks, a pause, one knock, a pause, three knocks, then my voice saying, “Hey, Harry. It’s me, Martin.” If you ask me, we could’ve done just as well without the knocks, but Harry was inflexible about it. I fumbled the knocks all right: two…pause…three- no, better start again…I heard the ominous sound of a shotgun pumping into readiness. “It’s me, Harry!” I said in a fluster. Realizing my mistake, I ducked down, waiting for the spray of bullets. They didn’t come. A series of clicks and slides. Harry was going through the tedious routine of unlocking the dead bolts. It took longer than usual. He must’ve added a couple of new ones. The door crept open. Harry stood there in his underwear, shotgun in one hand and an ax in the other. His eyes were full of fire and fear. I couldn’t wait. I told him the news.
“I found a publisher! He loves it! He’s from England, so he grew up on a diet of scandal! He’s not afraid to put himself on the line. He loves your book! He’s putting everything into it! The book’s going straight into publication!”
Harry was too stunned to speak. He was frozen solid. Have you ever seen a man congeal from good news? It’s hilarious.
“Waaa- what did you say?”
“We did it! Your book is going to be a book!”
Relief and fear and love and terror and elation crowded his face. Even the most self-confident egotists have a secret part of themselves that doubts anything will ever go right. That part of Harry was going into tumult. It was just so unexpected. Harry’s ESP had a blind spot because of that pessimistic voice, which shouted louder than the prophetic whispers of his third eye. He laughed and cried and raised his shotgun in the air and fired. The ceiling came down in large plaster chunks. It was terrifying. He hugged me. We danced around the hallway, but it was hard to enjoy it because Harry still held the shotgun and the ax. He tried to kiss me on the mouth again, but this time I was ready for it. I gave him my cheek instead. He kissed my ear. As we kept on spinning, Harry’s dead leg swung around and knocked over the side table. This was it! His book! His baby! His legacy! His immortality!